All Our Worst Ideas Read online

  And maybe it’s a little bit about music.

  I glance down at Javier, still trembling in Mama’s arms. “Well. Actually. I got a job at Spirits. Okay, well, it was great talking to you. Bye.”

  She frowns at me, but I shut the door. Out in the living room, Marisa and Gabriella are still screaming over the pink hairbrush, but now Hector has joined in, taking Marisa’s side, and trying to help her wiggle the brush out of Gabriella’s hands. I walk over to them and snatch the hairbrush out of the middle of the battle.

  “Now you get to share the purple brush,” I tell them, and Marisa and Gabriella start screaming for Mama while I take off for my bedroom. I toss the pink hairbrush on my dresser and collapse on my bed, aware of the textbooks I set out before I left so that I could get back to them when I got home. But I’m exhausted.

  Mama comes into my room and shuts the door behind her. Down the hall, I can hear Javi crying still.

  “Amaría, tell me about your job,” she says, and I hate the tone of her voice. She always gets this tone when she has opinions, and I don’t particularly feel up to listening to the “You should have done this a long time ago” lecture right now.

  “Mama, don’t worry about it, okay? I have homework to do.” I get off my bed like I was going to do the homework I have instead of vegging out, but she ignores me.

  “You’re mad at me. Why? Because I made you get a job, like a normal teenager?”

  I slam my textbook shut. “Okay, first of all, normal teenager? That is so offensive. And second, why didn’t you tell me Carlos lost his job? You waited a whole week!”

  “It wasn’t something you needed to know.”

  I throw my hands up. “Not until you need me to get a job. You totally blindsided me! I have to focus on school, Mama. And now, I have another thing to worry about.”

  “Well, maybe you should be more worried about this than about scholarships and class rank.”

  I scowl at her. “What does that mean?”

  Mama crosses her arms. “Mija, I’m not trying to start a fight with you. I just…” She trails off and sighs, that same sigh I know so well, followed by words I know so well. “Baby, you know you might not get into Stanford. It’s not that I don’t believe in you, but getting into Stanford is hard. Would it really be so bad to have a backup plan? Have some job experience under your belt? What happens if you don’t get that scholarship? You know we can’t afford—”

  I ball my hands into fists. “I’m going to get into Stanford, and I’m going to get the Keller Scholarship, and I’m going to move to California. All I have to do is make valedictorian, and I have been first in my class for two years. Why can’t you just be on my side for once?”

  She sighs and comes to stand in front of me, setting her hands on my shoulders. “I am on your side, mi amor. But I don’t want you to be heartbroken when things don’t go your way.”

  She always says it like that, so gentle. But every time, all I hear is You can’t do it.

  Before I have a chance to call her out on this, there are four small children stampeding through my room, shrieking at the top of their lungs.

  “Girls!” Mama shouts after them. “Boys! Stop running! Get out of your sister’s room!”

  The two sets of twins, two girls and two boys that are my half siblings, ignore Mama and continue chasing one another in circles around her legs like we’re in a Tom and Jerry rerun.

  I slam my hands over my ears. “Get out!” I shout at them, trying to get them to at least slow down, but they don’t. Finally, Mama snatches up a wriggling Hector and shuffles him out of the room, and the other three kids follow close behind, a choo-choo train on a sugar rush.

  I slam the door behind all of them and lock it. I don’t want Mama to come back in and remind me how big the chances are that this will all blow up in my face.

  And then I lie back on my bed and call Jackson. He answers on the first ring.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” I tell him, and I hear him sigh in that way that he does when I’m upset. A sympathetic sigh.

  “What’s wrong?” Just the sound of his voice seems to calm some of the unease inside me.

  I shrug, immediately feeling stupid for calling him at all. Jackson doesn’t need to hear me complain again about the job and about Mama and about everything.

  “Why is that everyone else can handle working and school and a social life, and I can’t?”

  On the other end of the line, Jackson snorts. “Because everyone else isn’t pushing themselves as hard as you are. You want to come over?”

  I sigh. “No, I have homework.”

  “Okay. Want to put me on speaker and turn on some music while you study?”

  I smile up at the ceiling. Sometimes, Jackson can be so perfect. “Really? You hate my music.”

  “Just pick something good.”

  So I turn on James Arthur, put Jackson on speaker, and start studying.

  OLIVER

  WE’RE ALWAYS LATE to church. It’s like a curse or something. Every Sunday, without fail, I sit by the front door of our apartment, waiting patiently for my mom to emerge from her bedroom, dressed in her finest clothes.

  I don’t really have fine clothes, so I just wear my nicest pair of jeans.

  This Sunday is no different, and we pull up in front of the church fifteen minutes after service has already started. Mom’s heels clack loudly against the pavement as we rush up to the door, and I hold it open for her just as my phone buzzes in my pocket. I sigh and reach in to get it, fully prepared for it to be Brooke asking if I can open the shop because someone called in sick.

  But it isn’t Brooke. It’s my dad.

  “Oli?” My mom stands half in and half out of the church, her face full of concern.

  “It’s Dad.”

  Aggravation overtakes the concern. “Now? It’s ten in the morning.”

  “Sorry. Maybe it’s nothing. Go ahead without me.”

  She sends me a look that says we’re thinking the same thing: With Dad, it’s never nothing. She hesitates, and then she finally turns and goes inside. My phone is still ringing, and now I have no excuse not to answer.

  “Oliver,” my dad says before I’ve even said a word. “Bad news, kid. I need a ride home.”

  I’m a little confused. Usually, when my dad needs a ride, it’s at two in the morning on a Sunday, and I can barely understand what he’s saying between the alcohol and his Scottish accent, which incidentally gets stronger when mixed with Jack Daniels. And sometimes, it isn’t even him calling. My father changed my name to simply SON in his contacts list, and ever since, I’ve been getting calls from bartenders to tell me Dad has passed out in one bar or another.

  Never has my father called me at ten in the morning on a Sunday, and never has he sounded so sober.

  “Where are you?” I ask. Out in the parking lot, a nice-looking man and woman are each holding the hand of a toddler as they all three tiptoe across the pavement. I hold the door open for them and then step away.

  “Well, that’s the bad part. I’m at the jailhouse in Independence.”

  “What?”

  “It’s no big deal. Got in a bit of a brawl last night at Hassey’s. But I’m good now. I’m out. I just need a ride home.”

  I grit my teeth and glance back at the church. Mom is alone inside. “Can’t you take the bus?”

  “No money.”

  “So, walk.”

  “Come on, Oli. Just come get me.”

  “I’m busy right now. I’m supposed to be in service with Mom.”

  My father laughs into the phone, a breathy laugh that I don’t find particularly amusing. “She’s still got you doin’ that codswallop, huh?”

  Does this feel like groveling in his mind? Is this how he asks for things nicely? I don’t say anything. I’m not going to defend Mom. I don’t need to.

  His laughter dies. “Oli, come on. Come get me. The world is still spinnin’ a little. I don’t know if I’ll make it home.”

&
nbsp; I sigh and hang up without answering. He can stew and wonder if I’m going to show up or not. I roll my eyes at the thought. He knows I’ll show up. I always show up. I want to not care about my dad. I’ve been picking him up from seedy bars and strangers’ apartments and questionable clubs since I got my learner’s permit, and no matter how much I want to, I can never say no to him.

  I’m at the station in half an hour. When I get there, my father sits on a bench outside the front door, scowling up at the sun like it’s personally offended him. He looks pathetic, sitting there, shivering in his brown leather jacket, his red hair, the hair I inherited, gleaming bright. He’s paler than usual, and I’m certain it’s the first time he’s been hungover on a Sunday morning instead of still drunk from the night before.

  When I reach out to help him off the bench, pulling up until he wraps a hand around my shoulder, a police officer props open the glass door of the station. “Fergus,” he says, “I don’t want to see you back here again.” He turns to me and hands me a card. “It’s a damn shame,” he says, and goes back inside without another word.

  My father is already halfway to my car, completely unconcerned with what’s going on. I look down at the card in my hand. It’s a business card with the name, address, and meeting times of an Alcoholics Anonymous group. When I finally look away from it, my father is pulling impatiently at the door handle of my truck. I press the unlock button on my key ring and then climb into the driver’s seat. It’s then that I notice the piece of paper in my father’s hand.

  Without asking, I reach across the console and snatch it away from him.

  “Dammit, Oli,” he growls, but he doesn’t try to get it back from me.

  I read over the paperwork, my cheeks heating in anger as I take it all in. I finally slam it against the steering wheel, blaring the horn in the process. “A court date?” I demand. “Are you kidding?”

  My father rolls his eyes and puts on his seat belt. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Not a big deal?” I wave the paper in his face, but I know he’s already read it. “This is a court date. That means the guy you beat up is pressing charges against you. You could go to jail just for being a fucking idiot.”

  My father chews on his nails. “Oli, it’s really too early in the morning for fuck, okay? They’re not gonna put me in jail.”

  I scoff. “Why not? Because you’re such an upstanding citizen? You have a record. Why would they go easy on you?”

  His eyes slide over to mine. He makes a weird face, and then he reaches over and snatches the card that’s still in my hand. “What’s that then?”

  I pull out of the parking lot while he reads the card. He laughs and rolls his window down before tossing the card out.

  OLIVER

  THE APARTMENT IS silent when I get home that night. The apartment is always silent when I get home. I never work on Sundays, but after dealing with my dad this morning, I needed to be at Spirits.

  “Mom?” I call out, and my voice echoes in the living room. We’ve been living in this apartment for almost four years, but Mom still hasn’t put anything on the walls.

  There’s no answer. I take my wallet and keys out of my pockets and drop them on the table by the front door. Mom must be working the late shift at the hospital. Not surprising.

  I drop down on the couch and turn on the TV. My stomach rumbles, but there’s no way I’m cooking right now, so instead I pull out my phone and order a pizza.

  On the coffee table is a stack of college brochures, all of them with my name on the delivery address. I’m almost positive that Mom already went through them before she went to work, and I press the heel of my sneaker on the top brochure to slide it away. Underneath is an almost identical brochure for a different college.

  They all start to look the same after a while. On the cover is either a portrait of overly enthusiastic college students, cheering at a sporting event or participating in some sort of club activity, or else there’s a picture of the biggest building on campus, surrounded by greenery and blue skies.

  When the delivery guy rings the doorbell, my eyes have started to fall closed. I take a deep breath and push up off the couch to answer the door. He doesn’t say so, but I see the recognition in his eyes when he looks over my shoulder and realizes that he was here two nights ago, and just like then, I’m completely alone.

  “Thanks,” I tell him, leaving him a moderate tip.

  I turn off the TV and power up my turntable instead. It’s better than the late-night talk shows anyway. I sit on the couch and munch on the pizza while my newest album, purchased just after the shop closed today, blares in my ears so loud, I can almost forget the silence ever existed.

  AMY

  I TUG AT the bottom of my shirt and sit up straighter in my chair. I can hear the meeting going on through the open door of the counselor’s office. The person inside is trying to figure out how they’re going to graduate when they failed their last required math class. I try not to eavesdrop because I know I wouldn’t like it if someone was eavesdropping on my meeting.

  I scrape at the pink polish on my nails.

  “Amaría Richardson.”

  I look up in time to see the boy I heard talking to Mrs. Grimes rush out of the office, his head down. I look away from him, in case he’s trying to be invisible. I stand up and follow Mrs. Grimes into her office. I don’t close the door behind me. I don’t have to. Mrs. Grimes isn’t actually allowed to say my rank out loud, so it isn’t like anyone is going to overhear.

  “How are you this week, Amy?” she asks without taking her eyes from her computer. I tap my fingertips on my knee impatiently. She doesn’t have to ask me why I’m here. She knows. I’m here every week to check my rank.

  “Fine, thank you.”

  She makes a humming noise in the back of her throat, and I know something is wrong. She squints at the screen, her eyebrows furrowing deeply. Then she reaches across the desk, grabs the marker she always uses to copy the ranks onto a sticky note, and writes a number down. But then she crosses through it, writes another number, and then she sighs and pushes it across the desk toward me.

  “Okay, Amy. This is a weird situation, but, um, you’re actually tied with another student. So this number is very tentative.”

  I blink at her for a long time, the sticky note just sitting on the desk between us, until finally, I open my mouth. “Tied? What do you mean, tied? That can’t be possible.” I reach out and grab the sticky note, which at least says 1 even if it’s not really true.

  Mrs. Grimes smiles in a weird way. “It’s extremely possible. We still have plenty of time before the end of the school year for the tie to break.”

  My brain is moving in a million different directions, but I can only think about one thing. “But what if we’re still tied at the end of the year? What happens then?”

  Mrs. Grimes’s mouth twists. “You can’t be tied at graduation. We’d further evaluate your grades if your GPAs are exactly the same, and we would use your grade points instead of your grade-point average to determine the valedictorian. But don’t worry. This won’t be a concern come the end of the school year.”

  And then another thought makes its way to the front of my brain. “Who am I tied with?”

  Mrs. Grimes sighs. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  But she doesn’t have to. I’m already out of the chair, the sticky note clenched in my fist, and before Mrs. Grimes can say anything, I’ve rushed out of the office and into the hallway, following the flow of traffic to get to Petra’s first-period class. I know she has economics because I almost took the class but signed up for AP bio instead so I could be with Jackson.

  Petra is already in her seat, flipping through her textbook, and I sit down in the seat in front of hers, spinning around to face her.

  Her eyes are wide, but then she sees the sticky note in my hand and rolls her eyes. “I wondered when you would be demanding to know if I’m the one you’re tied with.”

  I clench
the note tighter. “So it is you?”

  She slams the textbook shut, and the girl across the aisle jumps at the sound. “Of course it’s me. Who else would it be? I’ve known since before break. I can’t believe you didn’t check before you left for the holidays.”

  I was so happy to be spending Christmas with Jackson that I walked out of school the Friday before break without even thinking about my rank. Obviously, I was too confident, too cocky, because I thought I didn’t have anything to worry about.

  Clearly, I was wrong.

  I’m not going to let her have it. Petra gets everything she wants, and she can have it all. But she isn’t going to have valedictorian. Valedictorian is mine. I worked too damn hard. I gave up everything: my social life, my sanity, everything. I’m not going to lose val. I’m going to do everything I have to in order to keep it.

  I stand up. I’m not often afforded the pleasure of looking down at people, but I look down at her now and nod once. “Get your salutatorian speech ready.”

  As soon as I get to first period, I pull out my planner and begin making changes. I can get in an extra hour of studying every night if I cut my sleep schedule short, and I have to make time for my homework in the evenings. I’m doing homework over breakfast way too often, and the feeling of being rushed is causing me to make mistakes. I’m skimming some of my chapters in my readings—completely unacceptable. And now that I have to factor in a job, I have to be more strict with my time, more structured.

  I put my planner away and wait for Jackson at our lab table. We’ve been partners in AP bio since the beginning of the year. I’m organizing my stuff exactly the way I like it when he shows up. He kisses me on the cheek, and just that tiny act makes it all start to well up inside me again, and suddenly, right in the middle of the science lab, I’m biting my lip to hold back tears.

  “Ames? What’s wrong?” Jackson knows me well enough to ask this quietly. He knows I don’t want to draw attention to myself, that crying in front of people is not something I’m interested in ever doing, and all that just makes me want to cry harder.